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Snow Friday 1/19/24: is it a period of light snow (less than 2"), or is there a chance of a 5" swath in part of the NYC subforum? Event OBS.


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3 minutes ago, SBUWX23 said:

the issue is unless you are under heavy rates, the thin cloud layer has allowed the suns energy to warm the blacktops. 

Yep, my blacktop driveway facing S (gets full sun on clear day) is snow covered in Syosset.  As is my road in untreated areas.

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27 minutes ago, FPizz said:

Yup, same happening here.  My driveway is just starting to get covered as well.  I measured on the old crust just now when taking the dog out.   Picked up again here.  Maybe we can make a run at 1.5".  I don't totally blame school officials though, when they closed the forecast still said 3-5".  I think all of us knew this was 1-3 in our area.

It's crazy that schools are closed for wet pavement here. I remember when they used to wait until snow accumulated significantly on pavement before making the decision to close schools. It's ridiculous that they make the decision to close way ahead of time for what's expected to be just an advisory level event. Today they ended up closing for nothing. It's still only accumulating a little on old snow with nothing at all even on car tops. 

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13 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

And as of noon, we're at 1.8", so about 0.4" per hour the last 30 min, as intensity has let up with a dry patch, but the radar looks pretty good for at least the next 30 minutes, so we'll get to 2" soon.  Based on the inverted trough being likely to set up well south of here (looks like an impressive blob in the Baltimore-Philly corridor and SE of that line - I'm assuming that's it), I doubt we'll get beyond 3", but even with light snow much of the day 3" is possible.  Still 29F so everything is accumulating even on the roads.  

SBUWX23 mentioned the thin cloud layer. Obviously there's a huge difference with the cloud layer between your location (just slightly to my south) and my location. Forget about roads .... it can't even accumulate on car tops here when it comes down moderately. It's crazy, but I'm glad you're getting a nice event down there. 

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6 minutes ago, winterwx21 said:

It's crazy that schools are closed for wet pavement here. I remember when they used to wait until snow accumulated significantly on pavement before making the decision to close schools. It's ridiculous that they make the decision to close way ahead of time for what's expected to be just an advisory level event. Today they ended up closing for nothing. It's still only accumulating a little on old snow with nothing at all even on car tops. 

I was a school principal for ten years, and we had the authority to make the call to close on our own.  My rule of thumb was to close the day before if there was a credible threat.  The days of waiting until the snow is on the ground and accumulating depended heavily on their being a parent at home to pick up/watch the kids.  These days, parents need as much time as possible to know schools are closed, so they can make child care arrangements. 

State laws require X number of school days per year, so the students will just be in on another day this year.  It's always better to err on the side of caution and just make the day up later in the year.  Everyone's safe and you don't waste an instructional day on a half empty school building.

And for the record, I would've closed today for one simple reason: the risk of snow covering up ice patches and kids/staff/families getting hurt.  Ice is always the biggest threat around a school building, and so many children are brought to/from school by their grandparents. 

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6 minutes ago, winterwx21 said:

It's crazy that schools are closed for wet pavement here. I remember when they used to wait until snow accumulated significantly on pavement before making the decision to close schools. It's ridiculous that they make the decision to close way ahead of time for what's expected to be just an advisory level event. Today they ended up closing for nothing. It's still only accumulating a little on old snow with nothing at all even on car tops. 

yes there was no reason to cancel school here but they might as well use the 3 snow days many districts have incorporated into the school calendar this school year because chances are this week might be the only real week of winter weather around here this winter. Also practically everyone who issued a long range forecast for winter 23-24 is going to bust badly the way it looks now IMO......after this week we are back to heavy rainstorms and 300 hour model driven fantasy snowstorms...

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1 minute ago, Kjtc1979 said:

I was a school principal for ten years, and we had the authority to make the call to close on our own.  My rule of thumb was to close the day before if there was a credible threat.  The days of waiting until the snow is on the ground and accumulating depended heavily on their being a parent at home to pick up/watch the kids.  These days, parents need as much time as possible to know schools are closed, so they can make child care arrangements. 

State laws require X number of school days per year, so the students will just be in on another day this year.  It's always better to err on the side of caution and just make the day up later in the year.  Everyone's safe and you don't waste an instructional day on a half empty school building.

Thanks for the response. You certainly make a good point. 

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1 minute ago, NEG NAO said:

yes there was no reason to cancel school here but they might as well use the 3 snow days many districts have incorporated into the school calendar this school year because chances are this week might be the only real week of winter weather around here this winter. Also practically everyone who issued a long range forecast for winter 23-24 is going to bust badly the way it looks now IMO......after this week we are back to heavy rainstorms and 300 hour fantasy snowstorms...

I sure hope no more cutters with 2 inches of rain-ground is beyond saturated

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10 minutes ago, winterwx21 said:

It's crazy that schools are closed for wet pavement here. I remember when they used to wait until snow accumulated significantly on pavement before making the decision to close schools. It's ridiculous that they make the decision to close way ahead of time for what's expected to be just an advisory level event. Today they ended up closing for nothing. It's still only accumulating a little on old snow with nothing at all even on car tops. 

But they didn’t know that. They were going by forecasts.

But in the 80s and 90s we never had school canceled beforehand and really didn't get early dismissals either

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8 minutes ago, winterwx21 said:

It's crazy that schools are closed for wet pavement here. I remember when they used to wait until snow accumulated significantly on pavement before making the decision to close schools. It's ridiculous that they make the decision to close way ahead of time for what's expected to be just an advisory level event. Today they ended up closing for nothing. It's still only accumulating a little on old snow with nothing at all even on car tops. 

They have the days built in so no loss. Some districts may use remote for the day. In a worse winter they wouldn't call it, but in mild ones they will for a small event. For one, people quickly forget how to drive in this stuff after a few lean years. There has also been a marked increase in erratic driving since the pandemic, with theories ranging from pent up frustration to viral micro brain damage. If you have been on 287, you know there is something to this....

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6 minutes ago, winterwx21 said:

It's crazy that schools are closed for wet pavement here. I remember when they used to wait until snow accumulated significantly on pavement before making the decision to close schools. It's ridiculous that they make the decision to close way ahead of time for what's expected to be just an advisory level event. Today they ended up closing for nothing. It's still only accumulating a little on old snow with nothing at all even on car tops. 

Every local road is covered and slippery in Metuchen with ~2" OTG.  For areas with maybe only an inch or so and not much on paved surfaces, it's possible that those areas did not get enough intensity to overcome even the lesser melting rate from indirect mid-Jan sun.   Getting that initial snow layer is critical and that requires at least some decent intensity for 20-30 min, but once that occurs, everything will accumulate, since the new "surface" is 32F snow and not slightly above 32F road surface warmed by the indirect sun.

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2 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

Every local road is covered and slippery in Metuchen with ~2" OTG.  For areas with maybe only an inch or so and not much on paved surfaces, it's possible that those areas did not get enough intensity to overcome even the lesser melting rate from indirect mid-Jan sun.   Getting that initial snow layer is critical and that requires at least some decent intensity for 20-30 min, but once that occurs, everything will accumulate, since the new "surface" is 32F snow and not slightly above 32F road surface warmed by the indirect sun.

all the main roads even through neighborhoods have been salted heavily and now that the precip is slowing down they will begin doing that to the side roads before dark in Northern most Middlesex County there was no reason for a state of emergency .

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23 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

And as of noon, we're at 1.8", so about 0.4" per hour the last 30 min, as intensity has let up with a dry patch, but the radar looks pretty good for at least the next 30 minutes, so we'll get to 2" soon.  Based on the inverted trough being likely to set up well south of here (looks like an impressive blob in the Baltimore-Philly corridor and SE of that line - I'm assuming that's it), I doubt we'll get beyond 3", but even with light snow much of the day 3" is possible.  Still 29F so everything is accumulating even on the roads.  

As of 12:30 pm we hit the 2.0" mark!  Woohoo!  That was 0.4"/hr the last 30 minutes.  Coming down moderately, still with beautiful dendrites.  I've never tried to measure snow ratios before, but I might give it a try, as I think we're probably in the 15:1 or more neighborhood.  Gorgeous.  And the radar still looks pretty good for the next 30 min.  Still 29F.  

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